INTERNATIONAL WINS FOR BERKSHIRE BOYS
In just over a fortnight 2 Berkshire youngsters have won European singles tournaments. After Robbie Ridout triumphed in Spain, Elliott Dimmock followed up with the 16U Boys title nearer home at Halton, Bucks.
Elliott was playing his first ever European event and deservedly won 5 matches. He started the week by eclipsing second seed Isaac Stoute 6/1 6/1 in the first round and finished by overcoming No.1 seed Julian Cash from Sussex 6/1 7/6. Cash made many errors in the first set whilst Dimmock was rock solid. However the second was a different story with Cash breaking to lead 4/3 before saving a match point as Dimmock recovered but a tie-break seemed inevitable. He then showed his class by taking it 7/2 to clinch the title with superior serving & relentless fore-hand drives
TRIUMPH AND DISASTER AT EASTBOURNE FOR OVER 35s.
There were contrasting fortunes for the Berkshire over 35 teams recently with Ladies relegated but the Men for the first time ever promoted to Group 1.
Unfortunately the Ladies were under strength and only won one of their 3 matches so went down at Eastbourne. However the Men’s more than made up for this at their rain affected week-end.. Friday was completely washed out but a 4-1 win over Hampshire & 5-0 against Derbyshire just saw them through. Their team now includes members of the successful Senior team who so nearly won the Inter County title a few years ago when they were twice pipped by Hampshire-ironically one of their victims this year.
The team was Paul Hand, Greg Saffrey, Hafeez Hameed, Tim Paton, Tim Davis and captain Adrian McCafferty.
This concludes a good year for Berkshire Men’s tennis with both their current Senior team promoted to Group 3 and under 18 boys to Group 4.